It is the only time Newcastle United have allowed the opposition to play in black and white stripes in a Premier League match at St James’ Park. Sort of.

It was September 1993 and United, long before the days of the Champions League and Europa League nights when playing in your away kit at home was commonplace, were playing Sheffield Wednesday in one of the early Sky Sports live games.

St James’ Park was feverish with anticipation of a big game – but in a story told in this week’s The Ref Show on YouTube the referee for the night Roger Dilkes revealed it was very nearly called off 30 minutes before kick-off. And we were equally close to seeing the Sheffield Wednesday players – who eventually played in white and a very dark blue – in skins.

Malcolm Allen celebrates (Image: NCJ Archive)

Dilkes takes up the story: “Everybody knows – around the world – that Newcastle play in black and white. Wednesday are blue and white so you couldn’t have that clash – there’s usually a facility for that.

“Long before I got the team sheets at 7pm, an hour before kick-off, Kevin Keegan visited my dressing room and said ‘Rog, you’ve got to come and have a look at the Sheffield Wednesday kit – it’s the same as ours!’

“I thought he was winding me up but he had passion in his eyes so together we went into the Sheffield Wednesday dressing room and sure enough, there was the specially manufactured kit for that live game. It was predominately white, with a candy stripe which was a very, very dark blue shall we say? Consequently it was not a shirt they could wear.

“I asked to see Trevor Francis, who was manager of Sheffield Wednesday, and when we found him I asked him what they’d brought that shirt for and they’d need to change into a second strip. He said ‘We haven’t got a second strip, we’ve only brought that one – it’s been specially manufactured as a sponsorship job for the live game’.

“I said ‘You’ve got a big problem then. You’ll be playing in skins because it’s the away team who are responsible for changing’.”

Dilkes rang Mike Foster, the Premier League’s secretary to seek a resolution. The decision was to make the home side play in their blue shirt – but only after some further wrangling.

He says: “The only reason I couldn’t get Sheffield Wednesday to play in Newcastle’s blue shirt was because we had squad numbers and names on the back of the shirts. I couldn’t have two Barry Venisons on the pitch so the decision was for Newcastle to play in blue and Wednesday could play in their specially sponsored shirt.

“Things like sacrilege and words like that were said. By this point it was 7.30pm for an 8pm kick-off and Sky were waiting to see what would happen because it was off at that stage. We couldn’t get different colours.

“I did an interview on Sky to say why Newcastle were playing in blue – and Sheffield Wednesday would be the ones playing in ‘black and white’! Sheffield Wednesday had disciplinary proceedings against them for it.

“Anyway, I said to my assistants ‘We’ll need to be on top form, it’s going to be a blood and snot game’. The result was Newcastle 4-2 Sheffield Wednesday – it turned out to be a fantastic game, and it’s the only time I’m aware of that Newcastle haven’t played in black and white at home.”

You can find the weekly You Are the Ref show on YouTube, where they discuss the weekend’s controversial decisions with a rolling panel of guests.